


Siberia

by RadioFriday



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Codependent Winchesters (Supernatural), Hurt Sam Winchester, M/M, Permanent Injury, Post-Season/Series 08 AU, Sam Winchester is Not Okay, Suicidal Thoughts, one sad and angsty handjob
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:15:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27164401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RadioFriday/pseuds/RadioFriday
Summary: When stuffing an angel inside your dying brother backfires.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 6
Kudos: 38





	Siberia

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally published on LiveJournal under my Kettle-o-fish name a million years ago and is slightly tweaked from the original.  
> Takes place after 9.01 and goes into AU territory after.  
> HEED THE WARNINGS. Sam is in a bad place and this is not a cheerful story.

“He’s tired,” Kevin snaps when Dean hovers in the doorway of the pantry, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible when he asks where Sam is. Dean just got in-- Castiel in tow-- from an angel thing in Ohio. It’s been about a month since their last visit and half of Kevin thinks it hasn’t been long enough and half of Kevin thinks its really shitty to leave the prophet in charge of the cooking and the cleaning and the duping of anyone who questions Agent Edward Van Halen’s authority as a seasoned veteran of the FBI as well as looking after Sam. It's not that Sam is particularly time-consuming or needy-- quite the opposite actually. Kevin just thinks Dean should go fuck himself on principle.

Dean looks down and scuffs the toe of his boot, rubs his palms on his jeans like he doesn’t know what to do-- and he  _ doesn’t  _ know what to do. He hasn’t known for a while. And he fucking deserves that, Kevin thinks. Dean earned his fucking life.

“Is he okay?” Dean asks as though Kevin wouldn’t have called immediately if Sam had gotten sick again.

Last winter, Sam snagged some kind of lung infection because the bunker gets colder and damp and Sam’s lungs are crap. Kevin didn’t know what to do and called Dean back all the way from sunny Tampa Bay because he thought Sam might die, wheezing in his bare little room, ripping his nasal cannula off every time Kevin slid it back into place and spitting bloody phlegm into the trash bin. 

“Sam’s always okay.” It sounds just as numb and rehearsed as when Sam himself says it, and then Dean slinks off silently. He finds Sam curled up in his bed, gray and sour, like he hasn’t showered in a few days, or moved, and hell, maybe he hasn’t. He’s staring at a spot in the air by his bed and barely looks at Dean when Dean knocks lightly on the doorframe.

“I’m okay,” Sam says.

Dean and Cas will be back on the road by the end of the week. They never stay long and it’s ironic, Kevin thinks, how this all happened because Dean couldn’t stand to lose Sam and now Dean can’t stand to be in the same room with him.

It’s different when they’re gone, but just barely. Sam drinks. He shouldn’t, but he does. Kevin used to try and stop him, but spending most of his day blacked out is one of the few things Sam is passionate about, so Kevin just asks him every ten seconds if he needs his oxygen and Kevin watches the meds like a hawk even though Sam got pissy with the hovering once and said, “I couldn’t do that to Dean. I wouldn’t. So stop it.”

“And yet you tossed Ezekiel out on his ass knowing full-well that it could kill you. That makes sense, Sam. Totally.”

“That was different.” Sam is quick to change the subject, “Have you looked at any of the catalogs that came? It’s not too late to enroll for the fall semester.” Sam keeps a PO Box in town just to get the fucking things delivered. Kevin has stacks of glossy books from Stanford, Yale, and Princeton; Flagler, NYU, Notre Dame, and Villanova threatening to collapse in his little bunk at any time. It’s annoying, but it gets Sam out of bed. Sometimes.

“Not really. Kind of hard to go back to pre-med after this gig, right? Might as well stay here.”

“That logic will get you stuck in this life,” Sam’s face twists into something grotesque and pained that Kevin thinks is supposed to be a smile.

“And you’d be the expert on that, wouldn’t you?” It’s mean and it’s low and Kevin knows it when he says it but he's drunk and he doesn't care and Sam is drunk and probably won’t remember. Castiel feels sorry for Sam and Dean feels guilty for Sam, but neither of them have to sit here, every day, and actually  _ deal _ with Sam, “Hate to break it to you, Sam, but you survived after all.”

***

This is how it happens:

Sam figures out what the memory lapses mean, figures out what Castiel keeps staring at-- with  _ such _ longing-- in the air just behind him, figures out why he’s up and about even though he felt it all shutting down back in that church. There’s a stack of X-rays, scans with one of his names on the folder crammed into a corner of the Impala’s trunk that shows dark swaths of damage to what he recognizes as heart, lungs, brain and bone.  Sam reads the notes in the margins and can't breathe.

_...unresponsive upon arrival _

_...massive internal burns _

He’d crashed twice.

They'd assigned Dean a grief counselor and everything.

In a Speedway restroom outside of Indianapolis, Indiana, Sam feels the thing thrumming inside him. He leans towards the cracked men’s room mirror and hisses, “I know what you are. I know that you’re there. I overpowered Lucifer. You think I can’t handle  _ you _ ?”

When Sam finally finds that little ball of big power doing its damndest to blend into the back of his mind, it’s weak and even at its strongest, it was no archangel. Sam overcomes it quickly and completely. He’s meditating, seated in the lotus position on his bed in the bunker a week later, and he touches it, grabs it, and calmly, coldly tells it:  _ Get out _ .

_My name is Ezekiel. I’m healing you. You were dying. Ask your brother._ _Please let me go_. _I mean you no harm. I'm here to help._

Sam squeezes harder and the angel screams and, surprisingly, so does Sam. Dean finds him on the floor of his room, wedged between the wall and the bed, with a steady rush of blood streaming from his nose, blue light flickering frantically behind green eyes. Ezekiel gasps, “He knows. He’s rejecting me. He’s hurting us,” before Sam is in control again, dragging himself away from Dean on trembling arms. When he looks up again, it’s Sam’s eyes staring back, bloodshot and betrayed.

“How could you do that to me?”

Dean shakes his head, “How much do you know?”

Ezekiel and Sam both scream in dissonant unity, “EVERYTHING.”

“You were dying, Sammy. What was I supposed to do? Just let you  _ die _ ?”

“YES, Dean. That’s exactly--” the light flickers behind Sam’s eyes again and he gasps, clutching at his chest before tamping the blue glow down again. He continues through clenched teeth, “I was human,  _ really _ human. And I was  _ ready _ . It was my  _ right _ .”

“I can’t do this without you, Sam.” The meaning has warped over the years, slowly, innocently enough that neither of them noticed.

“It’s not always about what you want!" Sam is frantic, panicking, "And you...you let...that thing--”

“An  _ angel _ , Sam. Dammit, it’s not like I made out with a demon. No one is hurt here. You’re alive. We’re together. We’re okay. Just calm down, okay?” Dean’s on his knees reaching for Sam, but Sam pulls away, curls into the wall behind him and sucks at the air like a drowning man’s last futile gesture. Undeterred, Dean closes the space between them and smooths Sam’s sweaty hair away from his forehead. Initially, Sam tenses, then folds inward, body wracked with huge, gasping sobs. He curls into Dean’s chest, alternating between grabbing handfuls of soft flannel and half-heartedly striking the hard muscle of Dean’s chest. Dean cups the back of his head with one hand and rubs circles into his back with the other. Sam’s choked sobs mellow out to muted sighs when he raises his head, blood dried beneath his nose, and presses his forehead to Dean’s.

Sam shudders and says, “I understand.” He tilts his head just slightly and presses his lips to Dean’s-- cautiously, at first, then firmer when Dean kisses back and cradles his cheek with one hand. Sam takes his wrist and guides him down to palm his hard dick, straining against the denim, moaning when Dean grips him firmly and tugs.

Suddenly, Sam pulls away, wiping at the wetness on his face with his sleeve. He sniffs, “I understand. I need you to understand too.”

“What--”

“It’s not because I don’t love you,” Sam whispers and reaches up, pulls an angel dagger from beneath his pillow. He holds it like a candle at a vigil and places the deadly point at his own jugular, “But I’m gonna have to ask that my passenger leave.”

“Ezekiel’s the only thing keeping you alive right now, Sammy.”

Sam smiles small and sad and quietly apologetic, “I know, Dean.”

“Sam, c’mon. It’s not a bad deal. He just wants to--”

“Use my body. Use me.”

“You said you were  _ happy _ .”

“It wasn’t real, Dean,” Sam smiles bitterly, “Angelic antidepressants? Really?”

Sam presses the tip of the sword just deep enough to tear skin, exposing the unnatural mix of blood and grace beneath his skin, “You can leave peacefully, Ezekiel, or I can make a mess.”

Dean lunges but it’s too late. Sam’s head jerks back as the angel flees in a shock of blue-white light and the angel sword falls from Sam’s nerveless fingers. His eyes roll into the back of his head and he falls forward into Dean’s waiting arms where Dean instantly jams two fingers to Sam’s neck. His pulse is fast and fluttering, but it’s there.

“I got you, Sammy. I’m right here. Just...just stay with me.”

And Sam does

***

After, Sam is bedridden for a month and only speaks in monosyllables. When he wakes up the first time, on a too-small cot in the bunker’s infirmary, Dean fusses and babbles, “He healed you up enough, little brother. Not completely, but enough,” while Sam’s face slowly falls and his eyes travel around the room, lingering on Cas, on Kevin, on the IV taped to his hand, and finally, on Dean, who asks, “How you feelin’, Sammy?”

Sam just turns away.

Garth knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a doctor who he drives-- blindfolded-- across two state lines to tell them that Sam will live, but he’s as good as he’ll ever be. He compares Sam’s old MRI to his new MRI and calls the limited recovery “impossible” and “simply miraculous” which makes Sam tense up and Dean politely ask Garth to take the doc home. Sam finds a ward that supposedly protects the wearer from angel possession, asks Castiel if it’s legit. He carves it into the colorless flesh beneath his left elbow with a scalpel one night while they’re all sleeping -- which sends Dean packing up the Impala and dragging Castiel to Oregon on reports of a wendigo. Kevin cooks for two and throws half of it away.

This is how they live now:

Dean and Castiel drop in for a few days every couple of weeks. Dean always calls ahead and Kevin feels like he’s asking for permission to come back, even though he never actually asks, just says they’re a day out and there better be a pie sitting on the kitchen counter when he gets in-- punctuated with the nervous laughter that accompanies a joke gone flat. The first time, Kevin brings a peach pie back from the grocery store in town and Sam makes him take it back and exchange it for cherry because "cherry is Dean's favorite."

Kevin grumbles, "If you care so much, maybe take a shower, put some real clothes on, and come with me next time."

Sam goes as far as to take a shower, but refuses to break his streak when it comes to leaving the bunker. It’s been  _ years _ and it’s not like Dean and the others haven’t tried, but Sam has his excuses-- the wheelchair is a pain in the ass, it’s cold outside, it’s hot outside, he’ll bump into a plague victim and get sick and die, he doesn’t need anything from Wal-Mart, maybe he does need something, but that's why he gave Kevin a list, he’s busy, and of course, the perennial favorite, he’s  _ tired _ . He’s just  _ so damn tired, Kevin. _

Sam deliberately remains out of sight for the whole first day of Dean’s visit. Kevin thinks he does it out of spite, like when Dean calls from the road and asks for him and Sam refuses to take the call, or takes it and holds it listlessly to his ear, participating in the conversation only according to the barest of parameters.

Dean brings Sam presents from the road: books, bags of organic coffee from little college town roasters, pictures and posters and maps that Dean tacks on the walls of Sam’s bedroom while Sam hovers in the corner like a ghost in every way but the one that matters.

Charlie Bradbury used to come around until the haunting in the bunker drove her away too. Kevin thinks the only reason he’s still here is because he’s a shadow of his old self too.

The last time Charlie visits, Dean drinks all the beer in the fridge and begs Sam to tell the story about the time their dad ditched them in Welch, West Virginia for a month in the dead of winter and when they ran out of food money, Dean snuck Sam into a bar and bet the old miners they couldn’t beat his baby brother, “You whooped their asses, Sammy, and they didn’t even know what to do. They wanted their money back but you were just this fuckin’ little thirteen year old-- tell ‘em, Sam. It was great.”

Sam offers up that half-hearted thing that passes for a smile and says, “Tell them yourself.”

“No, c’mon, Sammy, don’t just sit there like a fuckin’ corpse, tell the story!”

“I’m tired, Dean.”

“You’re always tired.”

Something pained and dangerous flashed in Sam’s eyes and the sad smile sharpened. Sam knows where to cut Dean so it hurts. He always has. This is the only weapon he still carries with confidence...or wants to. 

“When I was thirteen, I scammed some old drunks out of their union dues at pool and we used the money to buy hot dogs and ramen noodles because our father didn’t understand that thirty dollars wasn’t enough to feed a thirteen year old and a seventeen year old for an entire month. Dean thinks this is a happy memory for some reason.”

Sam pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’m going to my room. I’m fucking tired.” And then quieter, “Just so fucking  _ tired _ .”

Dean’s face falls and he fumbles drunkenly, tugs his Beretta out of his jeans, and slams it on the coffee table, slurring, “If you want to be dead so badly, Sam, just do it. I can’t make you stay. I can’t do it anymore.”

Sam’s fingers twitch, “Dean, you’ve proven over and over again that you can do just that.”

Dean levels him a dark glare and says, “Okay, Sam. Let’s tell another story. Wanna tell them about that reaper in Nebraska?” before snagging his gun and stuffing it back in his waistband.

Sam says, “Nebraska was a mistake. But I was young. And I learned.”

Except he didn’t, is the thing. Not really.

Sometimes it’s Dean slipping into Sam’s room, but most of the time it’s the other way around, with Sam slipping cautiously across the hall when everyone else is supposed to be asleep. He taps softly on the metal door and lets Dean have his back, makes sure no one is spying when he slips into the dimly-lit room and crawls into Dean’s bed. Dean hits the light and slides beneath the blankets himself, curling protectively around Sam’s diminished form, worn down to the frame, pushed well-past it’s intended life. Sam takes his hand and presses the palm flat against his chest. He lets Dean have this for a few minutes. He lets Dean press his ear against his back, listening and feeling, holding Sam’s battered-- but not broken-- heart in his hands. 

Dean’s dick stirs and Sam reaches back to caress it before turning around. He slips a hand beneath Dean’s waistband and works it properly. It doesn’t take long for Dean to spill over his hand, grunting Sam’s name like a reluctant prayer. Sam wipes his hand on the leg of Dean’s boxers and rolls back over.

Dean runs a palm down Sam’s side, fingers lingering reverently on each rib, the dip of his waist, and the jut of hip bone before sliding down to fondle Sam’s soft, flaccid cock. With no response from Sam or his junk, he goes further, palms the weight of Sam’s balls and brushes his lips against the back of Sam’s neck.

Nothing. 

Dean makes one final move, readjusting and sliding a finger down the cleft of Sam’s ass, only for Sam to grab his wrist and push his hand away.

Dean frowns and he makes a token comment about chafing from spending the night in his wet shorts, but he makes no move to change them and instead, tucks the blankets securely around Sam’s shoulders and presses his lips to the back of Sam’s neck. Dean holds him like this and Sam allows himself to feel warm. Sam listens to his brother’s breathing even out and the soft snores of a deep sleep take hold before he tangles their fingers together and stares into the darkness, waiting for Death’s other brother to visit in the night.


End file.
